maximum sentence. >> john ryan young, what a tragedy. thank you so much for that all right. food news. this morning. the distribution of raw milk products from the brand raw farm has been suspended in california after the bird flu virus was found in milk samples. health officials say the milk that was tested was not released to the to the stores. excuse me. so this morning, shoplifting gone bad or wrong or just plain stupid? this happened during an event for actual police officers. a literal shop with a cop event for kids. someone chose that moment to try to steal stuff we were able to see on video the suspect as he was concealing merchandise, and then he began making his way towards the exit. >> as we approached from different directions, he tried to escape out the back of the store where he was apprehended so police say the suspect was surrounded by 15 officers. >> they say he had nearly

$1,400 worth of stuff with him. again, trying to steal at a shop with a cop event. bad timing. a new hour of cnn news central starts now all right this morning, an announcement from president-elect trump, a big international trip even before he takes office again. a voluntary missing person voluntary. the mysterious disappearance of hannah kobayashi adding a sudden twist. new surveillance video shows her crossing the mexican border alone with her luggage and thinking about quitting your job. turns out your boss might be giving you. you might just be giving your boss the greatest holiday gift they could ask for. let me stipulate i am deeply satisfied with my job. sara is out today i'm john berman with kate bolduan. this is cnn news center

soon to be president trump isn't just back on the world stage. >> he is about to take center stage. we are learning this morning that donald trump will be traveling later this week to paris on the personal invitation from french president emmanuel macron for the grand opening of reopening of the notre dame cathedral. this will be donald trump's first trip overseas since winning the election, and it will happen as a handful of his top cabinet nominations are facing more questions and more scrutiny on capitol hill with their confirmations hanging in the balance. some of them, including pam bondi, who's up for ag pete hegseth, who's up for defense secretary? tulsi gabbard, who's up for dni? they're headed to the hill today to meet with more lawmakers to make the case. shake the hands and maybe answer some questions. let's start this hour with cnn's senior political analyst, mark preston for much more on this.

mark, can we start with donald trump headed to paris, though i want to get to nominations in a second. but in this moment, i'm going to present to you a a multiple choice question, if you will, on the intent of macron's invite, because you can just jump right on into his mind and guess one a this is a it's just old friends getting back together. b macron's play to position himself as trump's favorite european favorite ally. c donald trump's love of the cathedral's gothic architecture. or d all or none of the above well it's definitely e no doubt. >> no, i'm kidding. it's definitely d i mean, the fact of the matter is, what macron is doing is being very tactical right now. he's somebody who's had trouble back in, you know his own country with his favorability rating inviting donald trump to come over for this grand reopening of notre dame cathedral is something that plays very well to donald trump's ego. and let's not forget donald trump is somebody who has built his whole career. on what? on building things. so

the fact that donald trump is going over there not too surprising given that macron is trying to position france as one of the, if not the rather leader coming out of europe, especially as donald trump is talking about the dissolution of nato and we have new leaders of course, in germany and in great britain, you know, from the time when donald trump was president, before kate and we're showing video of 2017, remember when trump was over there for it was the bastille day? >> and remember how much donald trump putting aside the long, awkward handshakes. remember how often donald trump referred to that referred back to that it had a very big impression on him. he really enjoyed it and to me, seeing this invitation from macron. now, fast forward to today is it's also world leaders also know donald trump. this time around, it's not as much of an unknown macron will know that donald trump will

love a grand opening on the scale of notre dame cathedral, playing to his ego, no doubt. >> but it's even his threats. we've seen justin trudeau get on an airplane and get down to mar-a-lago, as donald trump has been talking about tariff threats between canada and mexico. we've seen the argentine president go to mar-a-lago to do what? well, not only to talk to the american first policy institute, which is basically donald trump's think tank, but also to meet with donald trump. so everyone is trying to jockey right now knowing that if they can play to donald trump's ego, that's going to help him once he takes office. >> on donald trump's cabinet nominations and the road to confirmation, some for some, may be a tough road. there is we know that still, the trump transition is ignoring the standard of putting these cabinet nominations up for to face fbi background checks which is breaking from the standard we are seeing now more openness from more republican

senators, especially to go along with that. just just be okay with that. i had two staffers from senate judiciary, former staffers on yesterday and mark, a democrat and republican and these are two guys that ran vetting for that key committee for years. and they called breaking from this tradition appalling and dangerous. but it just seems to be evaporating into the ethers of just like this is all happening and and it's just going to move forward no matter what i am still a little bit shocked how easily people seem to be going along with just not worrying about the standard of fbi checks. >> you know, kate, i don't want to go back too many years, but you and i both spent a lot of time on capitol hill covering capitol hill and it's the norms of what basically governed and guided how things got accomplished or didn't get accomplished on on capitol hill it really comes down to the number three. and it's if donald trump can keep less than three senators and i mean senators, i mean republican

senators from, uh from opposing what he's doing, then donald trump's going to be able to do whatever he wants. there will be no fbi background checks on some of these folks. what that does do is it puts an incredible amount of pressure and stress now on the minority committee, which are the democrats, to try to do these background checks as best they can for these confirmation hearings. and also, you know, donald trump has talked about trying to push through as many folks as possible. will he now put pressure on the republicans leading these committees, who are supposed to be doing the investigating, you know, in the vetting of all of this? will he put pressure on them to try to get these hearings done? incredibly quick? that's possibly and likely to happen. >> yeah, it's great to see you, mark. thank you so much see you soon, john. >> all right with us now is the democratic congressman from the commonwealth of massachusetts, seth moulton. congressman, thanks so much for being with us, john. good to be back, kate. mark, we're talking about the confirmation process here. defense secretary likely

nominee pete hegseth. there's an article in the new yorker that came out in the last couple of days, which talks about allegations of misbehavior when he was running a charity for veterans. just here's a quote from her. the report according to the new yorker, alleges that hegseth had to be restrained from joining the dancers on stage at a louisiana strip club where he brought his team. it claims that his management team sexually pursued employees and divided the organization's female staffers into two groups party girls and not party girls. you're a marine veteran. how would you feel about someone facing these allegations? leading the department of defense? i mean, it's just absolutely embarrassing and how as a junior officer, would i be expected to keep discipline among the marines in my platoon or whatever if we couldn't trust the discipline of the secretary of defense? >> you know, when you're when you're at that low level, as i was on the ground, you don't know about the daily decision making of the secretary you just want someone that can set a good example and you'll have confidence in to lead this enormous department that you'll know will make the right moral

decisions when it comes to putting your life on the line. and none of this behavior from pete hegseth will give any confidence to the troops that that's the case. >> i want to ask you about an op ed that you just wrote in the washington post. you've been in the news a little bit recently. you wrote the op ed after the reaction to a statement that you had made, that you would have concerns about your daughter playing sports with transgender girls or women and you talked about the backlash against that. and you said in this op ed that you've been getting calls of support from democrats. here's a quote they were simply glad that a fellow democrat would violate the moratorium on speaking our minds. it's the last part of that quote i want to ask you about, what is this moratorium on speaking your minds that you feel that democrats have? >> well, we seem to have a set of liberal litmus tests. and if you don't meet those litmus tests and you're not even allowed to share your opinion. i mean, this is the attitude that a lot of americans feel the democratic party takes to the entire country if you

don't agree with us, then not only are you wrong, but you're a bad person and these things are not up for debate. so i gave this example of transgender women in sports. it's just as one of many issues where we're not even allowed to have a debate. and many americans are turned off by that. they say, why would i want to be a part of a party where my views aren't valid? they're not even up for discussion. the definition of a majority party is you actually have you know, encompass the majority views of americans. and a lot of people feel the democratic party is out of touch right now. so if we want to start winning again, we've got to we've got to start embracing more ideas. >> i was tempted to call this op ed tough love, but it's more just tough i mean, there's not a lot of love in it frankly. you have another quote in there that says this should have been an easy election for democrats. >> it should have been. and you'll hear every excuse in the book right now in washington, there's a lot of denial in the democratic party. oh you know, incumbents across the globe we're losing or we didn't do as badly as the president in the house, for example. i mean, every excuse

in the book. and the reality is we've got to look ourselves in the mirror and say, we lost. we lost across the board, and we got to make some changes if we want to start winning again. >> do you think trump is right about stuff? is that what you're saying here i what i'm saying is that trump, despite his sort of twisted morals and unconscionable beliefs in many cases is able to tap into americans real fears and concerns. >> he's able to give voice to them. and when we deny those fears, for example, when we just said, oh, there's no problem at the border, or don't worry about inflation, it's going to go away when we just deny those fears, then people are not going to trust us. we need to be trusted as honest brokers, and that means you're willing to have a debate about some of these issues, not just shut people down if they disagree with your point of view as i said, some of these comments have caused a bit of a stir around the country, and in commonwealth. >> are you worried about being primaried i probably will be primaried and that's great. >> that just proves my point is that you can't speak a sentence that's out of line

and not get backlash from the left, but that's okay. this is a democracy. i'm going to speak my mind i'm going to give voice to the concerns that i hear from the constituents that i represent. and i'm going to keep doing that last question. >> i have had a chance to ask you this yet, but president biden had promised that he would not pardon his son hunter. he did pardon his son, hunter. how do you feel about that? >> i understand his instinct as a dad. i do but when you're the commander in chief, there are there's something higher at stake, which is the department of justice. the system of justice that we have in america. and the reality is that trump is already trying to abuse the system of justice. he's already trying to use the justice department for his own political ends. and i fear this is just going to give him another excuse. >> congressman seth moulton from the commonwealth, thanks so much for being with us, i appreciate it. good to see you, john. >> kate, coming up for us this morning, the woman who snuck through multiple layers of airport security to stow away on a flight to france. she's going to be sent back to the united states today. how she

managed to pull it off. and the major security concerns exposed by this scam. and after pushing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, right wing activists turned director dinesh d'souza is now admitting some of the claims in his film 2000 mules are false and the wild story of a couple in california who survived after their car went over a cliff crashing into the water below who should be the 2024 cnn hero of the year? >> it's your chance to weigh in. discover the life changing work this year's honorees are doing. then cast up to ten votes a day, every day. visit cnn heroes, the virus that causes shingles is sleeping in 99% of people over 50. >> it's lying dormant waiting, and could reactivate shingles strikes is a painful,

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and stream beyond sports on max this morning a 57 year old russian american woman is set to return to new york. >> this time, she's going to be accompanied by six u.s. marshals to make sure nothing goes wrong. because so much has so much had gone wrong to get to this point. let me set the scene for you. a delta flight going from jfk to paris last week. the woman somehow slipped past multiple layers of airport and airline security to jump a flight she had no ticket for to paris. she was discovered mid-flight as she had been bathroom hopping, which i didn't even know was a thing. throughout the journey. after landing at charles de gaulle she was arrested and then made to return to the u.s. on a flight on saturday. but but but she caused such a disturbance on that flight that she was removed before it took off. one passenger told cnn. she kept saying, i don't want to go back to the u.s. only a judge can send me back to the u.s.. joining me right now is cnn transportation analyst and former inspector general for the department of

transportation, mary schiavo. mary, i mean, there is so much going on here. i had to like list. that's why i wanted to kind of play out the timeline here for people on how we got to this point. and now we know that inspectors from tsa are preparing a civil case against this woman. after reviewing the airport security video from inside jfk. what does that mean well, the tsa says that they have to prepare a civil case because only the department of justice, the fbi and federal prosecutors, the u.s. >> attorney's offices can bring the criminal cases, but they should be preparing or at least working up information for a criminal case that they can present for prosecution. because obviously, this case has just gotten bigger by the day because of for example, the the escapade on the first flight back to the u.s., where she was screaming and yelling, and there is some video if it's authentic floating out there on the internet, where another passenger filmed her. um you know, she was rather

disruptive. and that's a crime. you can't disrupt a flight. um, so while they're preparing a civil case, criminal charges would be possible depending upon the other agencies investigating the matter. >> and as we learn more of the details of how this woman or just the fact that this woman slipped through security and delta checkpoints what all had to go wrong for her to be able to pull this off and get on that flight? mary well you said it best. >> a lot had to go wrong and did go wrong. and you know, for example, just yesterday, the fact that they put her on a plane to send her back to the u.s. to face some pretty serious questioning charges, investigation without law enforcement is really inexcusable. once again, it makes aviation security look like the gang that can't shoot straight. um, and so, you know, so much wrong. first of all, when you book a ticket, which, of course, she didn't do your check, there's a preliminary check when you book a preliminary security check of course, with your ticketing,

you have to present that to the tsa. you have to check in. they have a second check there where you are a passenger other than a few airports in the usa that believe it or not, let people through to dine and shop at the airport. there are 6 or 10 airports that do that and then once you get to the gate, there's yet another passport check because it's an international flight and a ticket check, and then not being seated on the plane, the bathrooms weren't checked. many airlines require the bathrooms to be locked before takeoff so you can't have a bathroom hopper because this has happened before. so a lot of things went wrong. and what the united states has to find out is it just, you know, everything all at once went wrong, or is this how lax we have gotten? and the biggest question is for the tsa how did she get past the tsa screening checkpoint? granted, her bag was checked to take out the water but her id was not and that is the biggest loophole for me because that was supposed to be our our

safeguard against another nine over 11. >> yeah. and that there are so many questions to this. i mean, what and maybe this is a one off and just a wild like coincidence that so many things went wrong to add up all to one add up altogether. but what do airlines and airports need to learn from this and learn from this very quickly well, and since this has happened to delta twice in a year, delta had another one of these back earlier in 2024. >> is that the rules are there for a purpose. you know, now this has cost a tremendous amount of of money of upset i didn't wouldn't want to have been the passenger next to this woman on her first flight back to the united states because the video, if it's accurate out there, she was rather agitated and flailing et cetera. but, you know, a lot of things were not done. and if that's the daily operation of the airport, we are not secure. and remember earlier this or earlier in november poland arrested four people who poland says is

reported in the media that poland said were russians trying to get bombs onto planes bound for the u.s. so that should have been a serious wake up call. and yet look at the security that we have. so there are a lot of people that have to answer questions. and i, frankly, would start with tsa because they didn't know who this person was and she wasn't ticketed. and yet they're supposed to stop. exactly. this kind of person. >> yeah. mary, it's great to see you. thanks for coming in. you too. coming up for. thank you. coming up for us. he's still the richest man in the world, but elon musk just missed out on a huge payday after a judge ruled he was not entitled to a $56 billion payout. and oxford university has picked its word of the year. how the term that actually first appeared more than a century ago is gaining traction. once again on social media can't fool myself. >> it was the most exciting time in the world. >> his life has extremely joyful moments and some really

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approved tech to the best beauty finds. >> discover it all at underscore. com this morning, the filmmaker behind the election conspiracy film 2000 mules dinesh d'souza now admits some of the claims made in that film are flawed. >> it debuted at mar-a-lago in 2022. let's get right to cnn's donie o'sullivan. so donie, who, by the way, i should note, is not far from mar-a-lago right now in west palm beach. you look positively glamorous this morning, donie. why did d'souza decide to come clean? >> thank you john. >> why now? why is d'souza coming clean now? >> i yeah, well look the long the long story short on this is that this movie 2000 mules. >> for those of our audience who may not have had the pleasure of watching it, i alleged that voter drop boxes, places that people go and drop their votes all around the country were the scenes of mass

voter fraud. and this very elaborate, far fetched movie that was released in 2020. and as you said, debuted close to here in mar-a-lago. >> trump was there. >> he was in attendance and praised the movie and they tried to say that people who who they called mules were showing up at drop boxes with all these fraudulent ballots, stuffing the drop boxes with votes and that's how they were committing voter fraud. >> there was no evidence at all whatsoever for this. so many different authorities investigated this even trump's former attorney general, bill barr, said there was nothing in the movie that showed widespread fraud one individual who was shown in the movie on surveillance footage is a man in georgia, and they alleged the movie suggested that he was one of these so-called mules georgia authorities investigated. he is not a mule he was bringing his own vote and ballots belonging to his family. to this drop site. so he sued. he said that his life has been turned upside

down because of this, and that is in part why dinesh d'souza the creator of this film, is apologizing. dinesh d'souza, by the way, who received a pardon from trump during trump's first administration related to election finance crimes. >> yeah, i figured there might be a lawsuit involved explaining why d'souza decided to change his tune on everything. what kind of reach did this film have? tony it's really hard to underestimate john. >> just how big this movie is. i hear about it all the time. two and a half years since its release, it really is one of the core pieces of propaganda that undermined americans faith in u.s. elections. just even recently, somebody brought it up in conversation. have a listen where will you go to get trusted results on election night? >> well, so the mainstream media is one news source.

that's not the only news source. glance through different social media forums for people to post things about results. i mean, that's kind of how a lot of the cheating that was done in 2020 was exposed, right? 2000 mules. it was very plainly there was videos showing how it was done so people bring up this movie all the time and in part, john, because it looks it's a really slickly produced it's kind of half csi mar-a-lago half, you know, these election detectives. >> but it is bogus. the movie has been repeatedly debunked for years but really it has played such an important role in undermining trust in elections. d'souza's apology was posted on his website without much fanfare but i don't think this is going to be the last we're hearing about the case of this man in georgia and about this movie. >> yeah, i think you're probably right about that donie o'sullivan and west palm beach wear some sunscreen. tony, thank you very much for that

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dismantle the organization that he could soon be leading. during a podcast in september is one example, patel said he wanted to shut down the fbi's headquarters on day one and reopen it the next day. as a museum to the deep state is how he put it in his book back in 2023, patel called for a comprehensive housecleaning of the justice department. his views my point being, his views about the fbi are, well known. but how about the views on that agency of the american public from the american public? cnn's harry enten has been working on that for us. he's here with us now. how what how do you gauge and how have the views of the american public evolved or changed or not, over the over the years? >> yeah. >> look, i think patel has real reason to believe that americans would go along with changes that he might potentially make at the fbi. >> and there's a reason why donald trump feels like he can make this change. it's because if you look here, fbi is doing an excellent or a good job. look at this time trend line. you go back to 2014, right? it

was 59% of americans. then 57% in 2019, 50% in 2022. look at where we are today. my goodness gracious. just 41% of americans think the fbi is doing an excellent or good job that is by far the lowest number. this century. the bottom line is during the trump administration, obviously there were the investigations into donald trump. you saw a little bit of drop then and then post january 6th. look at that drop 50% now 41%. my goodness gracious. >> kate bolduan, i think one thing about this hard to gauge right is i'll call it a chicken or an egg kind of question is, is it is is the view declining because there is it from bottom up or top down? is it because people are talking trash about the fbi? more and more or because people americans views are of distrust of the agency? are you know, are growing something? we it's hard that that is hard to know. but i throw that out there by asking then how does it break down along party lines?

>> yeah. take a look at republicans here we go. look at this drop. if you thought yeah. oh geez oh geez. that's a very good word kate baldwin if you look at words it's two words. the gs was what i was going for. geez, louise that's there's two words right there among republicans. is the fbi doing an excellent or good job? this is where you really see the drop off. you go back to 2014. i'm going to come to your side of the screen. it was 62% 2019. look at that. 46% 20, 22, 29%. now we're tied for the lowest point at this century among republicans at 26%. that is a drop of more than half since 2014. so again, you saw some of that drop during the trump administration. you know obviously he replaced james comey and then you see it really after january 6th, 29%. and now 26%. that is a tremendous, tremendous drop off among republicans. >> let's remember that number. and then let's talk about democrats. >> yeah remember this number and remember this trend line, this downward trend line among democrats. it's just not the

same story at all. all right among democrats, it was 54% in 2014. then you saw that number shoot up to 66% in 2019. then look at this 79% in 2022. we have seen some drop off since then. the 67%. but that is still significantly higher than it was in 2014 at 54%. the bottom line is this if republicans have become much less trusting of the fbi, democrats have become more trusting. though the number who trust it now, who think it's doing an excellent or good job, is lower than it was two years ago. and that is why we have the lowest percentage this century of americans overall, who believe the fbi is doing an excellent or good job. >> and you can assume that especially amongst republicans and people who voted for donald trump this cycle that that trend could carry across many just distrust in institutions in general seems to be growing. and that was a large part of this election that was that was a very large part of this election it's a very large part of why i think donald trump believes that he can go ahead and make big changes to the government and the american public, and especially republicans will go right along

with him. great to see you, ari. thank you see you john. >> all right. this morning elon musk and vivek ramaswamy tapped to lead what trump is calling the department of government efficiency. they are planning to use two recent supreme court rulings to try to slash federal regulations. with us now, cnn's senior legal analyst, former assistant u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york, and our bureau chief elie honig counselor, thank you for being with us. these two supreme court cases on regulations, pretty big deals over the last few years one of them had to do with what some people think was one of the biggest cases the courts made in the last 20 years. the chevron deference. what does that mean all right, john, we know you've always wanted to go to law school. >> so here we go. >> one of the first things they used to teach in law school back when i went was this thing called chevron deference. >> and that goes back to a 1984 supreme court decision which said essentially that the courts have to defer to agencies, whether it's the the epa or the fda or the cdc

generally speaking, it was hard for courts to strike down those regulations however, this past summer, in 2024, while everyone was paying attention to the presidential immunity case a few days within that, we got a different decision that reversed chevron deference and what that case involved was a regulation passed by the national marine fisheries service that said that when herring fishermen go out on their boats and fish for herring, they have to have a monitor a human being on their boats making sure they're complying with regulations and those herring fishermen have to pay the monitor. >> so this was costing fishermen hundreds of dollars per day, thousands of dollars per week. the supreme court struck down that regulation and said the courts no longer have to defer to the agencies that made it much easier for the courts to strike down federal regulations. >> and then the other case has to do with major questions. the major questions doctrine. what does that mean so this was another decision that was overruled because it came out in 2022.

>> and all the focus then was on dobbs, which reversed roe versus wade. but this decision involving the epa involved a law that congress passed a very narrow law that regulated coal emissions by coal plants. carbon emissions. and what the epa did was they took a very narrow statute, and they issued a very broad regulation that would have cost the industry hundreds of billions of dollars. and the supreme court, as the name suggests, major question, said if there is a major question of financial import or of political import, there has to be a specific broad law from congress. and so you can't do what the epa did there. so again this is one of two big decisions that the supreme court has recently issued that makes it much easier to strike down regulations so ramaswamy and musk, they want to use these cases to try to save money and cut. >> there are those who look at these and say what these cases really do is provide a structure for things going

forward for what the administrations can do when they try to impose new regulations going forward. they may not apply as easily to regulations that have been in place for years. what do you say about that i think that's right. >> but what these cases will do is make it much easier for an outsider for someone outside of government like our herring fishermen, like the coal plants that we talked about to come in and say, aha here's a regulation. and by the way, there are tens of thousands of regulations on the books this has really expanded since the 1980s for some private outside interests to come in and say this regulation is putting a burden on us, a financial burden, some sort of other administrative burden, and therefore you courts should strike it down and under these two new rulings on that both vivek ramaswamy and elon musk have promised to utilize, it makes it much easier for the courts to come in and say no good that regulation is off the books. >> i promise nothing is more exciting than talking about government regulations. i know i need a cold shower elie

honig, thank you very much kate. >> i'm going to quickly jump ahead now are your employers is your employer trying to get you back in the office, back to work, in the office, full time? it may not be because they miss you. i know i'm not speaking to you and you and you, it's the other person your employer loves you out there. i'm just going to say in a wall street journal op ed, elon musk and vivek ramaswamy wrote this requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome. vanessa yurkevich is looking into this. what is going on here? >> this is a little reverse psychology. >> i know i'm trying to reverse and understand it. >> it's trying to get companies are trying to get people to quit for various reasons. a couple reasons are that one, maybe companies have overhired and they need to let some people go, but they don't want to fire you. they don't want to lay you off. so instead they're trying to get you to quit. and ultimately if they do fire or lay you off, they have to pay you benefits. they have to pay you that's the why. >> why don't they want to fire you, vanessa?

>> because they don't want to pay the money that's involved in firing or laying off. so getting you to quit voluntarily voluntarily is a clean cut for them. some of the ways that companies are doing this are they're doing return to office. people are comfortable at home. maybe they don't want to go back into the office so they'll quit voluntarily. also reducing your workload for some employees that may be nice, but for others who are overachievers, they want to work and they want to be working on key projects. some companies might say, oh, i'm sorry, you can't work on this big project. someone might quit because of that. or if you get a poor performance review or you don't get any raises, then someone might say, hey, i'm not really interested in working at this company. if there's no path forward. >> upward mobility for me so people might not like these tactics, especially if you're, you know one of these employees that this is being targeted toward, but is this all above board? >> it is it is because employers can fire you for any reason or no reason employees can leave for a reason or no reason. so if they're trying

to figure out ways to get you to quit that's completely legal. except if you feel like you are being discriminated against for age, gender, race national origin. those are reasons that you can go to your employer h.r. or seek legal counsel to essentially say i'm being pushed out for those reasons, but is this good company practice absolutely not. this can backfire. >> this is how i would advertise if i was running an organization. come on in. and if i don't like it, i'm going to make it super uncomfortable to make you want to leave. and it can backfire because essentially you're pushing people out. >> but then what happens when you want to rehire? i spoke to laura marzullo. she's an owner of a staffing company. she said getting someone to quit is not a good employer. branding strategy. exclamation point word gets out fast and people will not want to work there going forward. so the reverse. >> she didn't think she'd ever have to ever have to say. >> i think she put a couple more exclamation points. she said, yeah, it will have a long tail of bad consequences. so not good business. but companies are doing it. and

listen, some people are quitting because they just don't want to be in that environment but others, you know, they'll stick it out until they absolutely have to leave. people want to collect a paycheck at the end of the day they confirmed confirmed confirmed by everyone. >> well, very interesting. good to see you, vanessa. thank you so much jon. >> you wonder why they're turning the temperature down in the studio a little bit every day maybe they're trying i we finally have figured this out. >> has anyone out there ever seen how cold i am? you can physically see it on me when my lips turn blue and my fingers, i can no longer feel my fingers. now i know why, john. now we know why behind it. >> all right. today is giving tuesday and cnn heroes is sharing a powerful way that your generosity can go twice as far. starting today, dollar for dollar matching is in effect when you donate to the top five cnn heroes i'm anderson cooper. >> each of this year's top five cnn heroes proves that one person really can make a difference and again, this year, we're making it easy for you to support their great work

just go to cnn heroes.com and click donate to make a direct contribution to that hero's fundraiser on gofundme you'll receive an email confirming your donation, which is tax deductible in the united states no matter the amount, you can make a big difference in helping our heroes continue their life changing work and right now, through january 5th, your donations will be matched by the elevate prize foundation dollar for dollar. >> up to a total of $50,000 for each of this year's honorees cnn is proud to offer you the simple way to support each cause and celebrate all these everyday people changing the world. you can donate from your laptop, your tablet, or your phone. just go to cnn heroes dot com. your donation in any amount will help them help others thank you and be the first to find out who will be the next cnn hero of the year. >> when anderson cooper and laura coates make the big announcement, cnn heroes, an all star tribute airs this sunday at 8 p.m. eastern and

pacific. all right. quote a fascination with the sheer power how one former world leader describes donald trump as u.s. allies and enemies prepare for him to take office. and are you feeling drained after spending hours scrolling aimlessly on tiktok? there is a name for that, and it is now the 2024 oxford word of the year cnn heroes, an all star tribute meet and celebrate the honorees then find out who will be hero of the year. >> plus, a special tribute to michael j. fox cnn heroes, an all star tribute sunday at eight on cnn. whoa! >> yes! >> how do you sleep at night on a mattress from mattress firm? >> i sleep all during the black friday sale. >> get up to $500 off on tempur-pedic. get matched at mattress firm sleep at night. >> the virus that causes shingles is sleeping in 99% of

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with lovesac. >> you make the rules. >> i'm elizabeth wagmeister in los angeles and this is cnn all right. >> new this morning in a dramatic rescue, bystanders jumped into the pacific to save someone who drove off a cliff. this happened in santa cruz, california. the car had hit another one before going into the water. the driver was floating when the bystanders

got down. the person was taken to the hospital. a delaware judge has again blocked elon musk's tesla pay package. it was approved by shareholders in june, but some had sued over it. the package includes more than $300 million in stock. no, i think more than 300 million stock options now worth about $100 billion. so are you familiar with the term brain rot? it is the word or words of the year. that's according to oxford university press. apparently, it's the feeling you get after mindlessly scrolling on your phone for too long. they say the use of brain rot rose 230% this year. now, the phrase was supposedly first used by henry david thoreau, a native of concord, massachusetts back in the 1800s. that predates tiktok. but apparently he was a heavy user of myspace. wait, you you always stop. >> wait, that part wasn't a joke. that it came from thoreau. >> no henry david thoreau apparently used the term brain

rot to talk about how people were dumbing down their analysis of all things. it's been noted in all the write ups of the oxford university press. they cited henry david thoreau, a native of concord massachusetts, not far from where i grew up, to say it again, just because the two greats from from mass, the hub of brain rot. >> thoreau and john berman brain rot. wow. it's been a long road of brain rot since thoreau. for sure. john. thank you. let's get to this. secretary of state. tony blinken, in brussels this morning for his final meetings with nato, foreign ministers. ukraine in focus, and understandably so. the biden administration has just announced a new $725 million aid package for to continue to help ukraine's fight against russia's invasion. at the very same time world leaders are clearly gearing up for the incoming trump presidency and what it will mean for their relationship with the united states. french president emmanuel macron making his move today trying to position himself as a trump favorite ally with the invite to attend

the grand reopening of notre dame cathedral this weekend. so much more. joining us right now is cnn chief international anchor christiane amanpour, who just wrapped an interview with another world leader who knows donald trump very well. former chancellor former german chancellor angela merkel. >> that's right kate. >> and no time for brain rot or dumbing down. >> now, let me tell you. >> no, please. >> everybody has to. >> really. you know, be in gear to deal with with this because what what she has said about ukraine, for instance is that, you know, even if trump wants to make a, you know, some kind of deal with putin or whatever, it has to come with strong guarantees for ukraine. >> you can't just believe putin as angela merkel with her experience, said. he told me a brazen lie. >> that was her, you know, that was her term about what he did in crimea, what he did in ukraine. so i asked her about trump and about her experience with him, and particularly what she noticed to be his fascination with dictators and authoritarians. >> so i put this rather long winded question to her, and here is the answer

i remember very distinctly when donald trump was first elected. you did one. you were the only one to actually welcome his election conditionally. in other words based on the respect and the adherence to mutual values, democracy freedom, diversity, rule of law human rights, et cetera.. um and i just, you know wonder whether you thought he did act in that way and especially because you said he was clearly fascinated by the russian president in the years that followed i received the distinct impression that he was captivated by politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits. how did that manifest itself to you the art and wise we err well in the way that he spoke about putin. >> the way that he spoke about the north korean president. obviously, apart from critical remarks he made there was always a kind of fascination at the sheer power of what these people could do. so my

impression always was that he dreamt of actually overriding maybe all those parliamentary bodies that he felt were in a way, an encumbrance upon him. and that he wanted to decide matters on his own. and in a democracy. well, you cannot reconcile that with democratic values really interesting. >> and she knows firsthand and she also talked about the trade tariffs and what might happen to the global economy, not just the u.s. economy. if all those tariffs are actually implemented and she reminded everybody that, you know, in the first trump term, it was china. but then all of a sudden the eu was hit with steel tariffs and others. and she said look it's going to hurt america and the world as well so let's see how that comes into focus. but yeah, the world leaders just like, you know, you saw prime minister trudeau go down to mar-a-lago president macron has invited trump to see the opening of the notre dame and they're all trying to get the measure of the man, the perspective from angela merkel

in this next president during donald trump's next term, will be very interesting. >> i hope she doesn't shy away from from the spotlight but but on that there's it's not just world leaders looking at in terms of donald trump it's also who will he have around him helping him to to put forth and to put in place his foreign policy like his defense secretary pete hegseth, he's you well know our viewers well know he's facing a growing list of of allegations and accusations. what are you hearing from leaders and others about that pick and others? >> look, a lot of people are very concerned. the united states military is the biggest, most powerful military in the world. it's got about 3 million people under arms. it's got a budget of nearly $1 trillion. and they have, you know, it's a massive nuclear power. so everybody is concerned about that as well. the chinese military and the chinese government is angling to surpass american leadership maybe by 2030. in